I recently purchased a program called Universe Sandbox for $5. It is billed as an interactive space gravity simulator, featuring much of the known universe. You can focus on the solar system, nearby stars, the Milky Way, even the Local Cluster. You can click on each major object, and it will provide you with a list of pertinent information: mass, density, radius, orbit eccentricity, etc. That's cool, but it's not the best part. Having selected the pertinent information, you are then free to change it and see what happens!
Pretty much nothing is off-limits, not even the gravitational constant. You can add moons, or take them away. You can build your own solar system from scratch, or mess with the one we have. It's pretty awesome.
The program also can save screenshots, so I'll post images here if I discover anything interesting. So far, the main thing I've learned is that if you increase the radius of the Sun by a factor of 100, the Earth will die a fiery death. But that's not too surprising, so in the meantime, here's a simulation of the collision of the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy.
It's due to happen in 4.5 billion years. Mark your calendars.
Sounds like a fun program! Did you find out anything interesting?
ReplyDelete